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Saturday, July 6, 2013

4th of July "Restore the Fourth [amendment]" protests against NSA/FBI domestic surveillance

First, editorial cartoonists weigh in. Interestingly, the first two mock the hypocrisy of a public which too willingly surrenders its privacy.

To read, click above to enlarge.

Below: the first protester nailed it. The only way to rein in a out-of-control bureaucracy is to cut its budget.
Unfortunately, large parts of the complete NSA budget, like that of the CIA, are not only classified, but scattered among other agencies and hidden in the so-called "black budget," which the Supreme Court has ruled that mere taxpayers do not have "standing" to examine, though Article One of the U.S. Constitution (Section 9) says: "...a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all [emphasis added] public Money shall be published from time to time."

...Richardson had
won an extraordinary, though ultimately short lived, legal victory. He had
succeeded in arguing that the ‘black budget’ was inconsistent with his constitutional
obligations and that the CIA Act had doubtful constitutional standing. The
1971 decision of the Court of Appeals is the closest any US court has come
to ruling on the constitutionality of the CIA Act. The Court had effectively
decided that Congress had no right to deprive American citizens knowledge
of the true size of the appropriated money that was being channeled to the
CIA through other government agencies. The Federal Government immediately
appealed to the Supreme Court and in July 1974, the nine Supreme Court Justices
ruled in a 5-4 decision, that Richardson did not have the legal standing
to challenge the Federal government.Adopting a conservative legal position, the Court argued
that Richardson’s suit was nothing more than a generalized political grievance
by a citizen that needed to be dealt with through the political system,
rather than the legal system. The Supreme Court concluded that it did not
need to examine the merits of Richardson’s case, since he did not have legal
standing to bring the suit to the Court. The Supreme Court thus overturned
the earlier ruling of the US Court of Appeals. The immediate consequence
was that the black budget would remain a secret for some years yet. Despite
the setback, Richardson had demonstrated that the ‘black budget’ and the
CIA Act that created it, had dubious constitutional standing, and only required
a challenge from a party with legal standing to most likely have it struck
from the statute books.

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.